Definition of "brute" []

• An animal; a beast. (noun)
• A brutal, crude, or insensitive person. (noun)
• Of or relating to beasts; animal: "None of the brute creation requires more than food and shelter” ( Henry David Thoreau). (adjective)
• Characteristic of a brute, especially: (adjective)
• Entirely physical: brute force. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "At certain intervals his mania came upon him, the strange hallucination of something four-footed, the persistent fancy that the brute in him had now grown so large, so insatiable, that it had taken everything, even to his very self, his own identity -- that he had literally _become the brute_."
• ""How I hate the man who talks about the 'brute creation,' with an ugly emphasis on _brute_ ...."
• "His whole appearance at such times excited disgust in that lady, and she would leave his presence as soon as possible, using even the term brute to express her disgust; Matthias too, would attempt to rouse him on such occasions, to a sense of impropriety, by exclaiming, "Why, Elijah! what are you saying, what are you about?" while other persons would remove his hand, and hold him."